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ages by sea, After all we had endured, I may 

 be permitted, perhaps, to speak of the satisfac- 

 tion we felt in having reached the tributary 

 streams of the Amazon, having passed the isth- 

 mus that separates two great systems of rivers, 

 and in being sure of having fulfilled the most 

 important object of our voyage, the determining 

 astronomically the course of that arm of the 

 Oroonoko, which falls into the Rio Negro, and 

 of which the existence has been alternately 

 proved and denied during half a century. In 

 proportion as we draw near to an object we 

 have long had in view, it's interest seems to 

 augment. The uninhabited banks of the Cassi- 

 quiare, covered with forests, without memorials 

 of times past, then occupied my imagination, as 

 do now the banks of the Euphrates, or the Oxus, 

 celebrated in the annals of civilized nations. 

 In that interior part of the New Continent we 

 almost accustomed ourselves to regard men as 

 not being essential to the order of nature. The 

 earth is loaded with plants, and nothing impedes 

 their free development. An immense layer of 

 mould manifests the uninterrupted action of or- 

 ganic powers. The crocodiles and the boas are 

 masters of the river ; the jaguar, the pecari, the 

 dante, and the monkeys, traverse the forest 

 without fear, and without danger; there they 

 dwell as in an ancient inheritance. This aspect 

 of animated nature, in which man is nothing, 



